


The Untold Want

by bachtoreality



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Light BDSM, M/M, Rimming, Slow Burn, but not really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-04-29 09:41:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14469954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bachtoreality/pseuds/bachtoreality
Summary: Will is in nature escaping his past and looking for God.Hannibal is something unknown, who finds Will.Features a Transcendentalist Will and Gothic/Romantic/Baroque HannibalIt is set in the 1870/80s.I apologize for all historical inaccuracies I make.The title is from the Walt Whitman poem.I will edit tags as I go on.





	1. Seek and Find

The river is riding high when he enters the rising flow of it to feel the tight cling of cotton and wool wrap around him in a suffocating, wet cold grasp. It had been weeks by himself in this cabin by the river. He had endeavored to leave the city, the demands of being an officer and instead let nature reclaim him. The stacks of poetry and the odd pamphlets adorned with majestic prints of Christ emerging from the Hudson River were waiting for him. But no word- no diction nor syntax could move him like the current of water tried to. If God were in nature, he would be in the coursing cruelty of water.

It was dark by the time he ended up back to shore. A terrible cold had taken to him, shaking his bones. He had not set a fire that morning and the sopping clothing he wore bit into him. He stripped the offending articles and left them to dry on the black rocks by the riverside. He began the short trek to the house with nothing on.

“Like Adam expelled from the Garden, where are you rushing off to in such a state, my child?” Asked a voice deep, accent thick that couldn't be placed. The man it came from was dressed in black and mauve, a charming but imposing figure. His face seemed carved deep with an otherworldly beauty.

“Excuse me, sir. You caught me at a most inopportune time.” Will looks away, his blue eyes nervous with embarrassment. He covered himself with what little he had.

“Perhaps for you. May I inquire as to your name?”

“William Graham. Of New Orleans.”

“Ah, La Nouvelle-Orleans. I do not detect any linguistic tell of your heritage.”

“I did not stay there and my father was from Pennsylvania.”

“Then how did you end up here- nude in the wilderness of Virginia.”

Will fidgeted, his eyes lingering to his cabin.

“I wanted to find God.”

The man smirked, “and what a place to find him.”

 

“I must excuse myself. It is quite cold and inappropriate.”

“Only if the company minds it. Please, if ever you tire of the reeds and the shallows feel free to inquire to take coffee with me. I am well versed in the works of Emerson and would enjoy the company.”

“I'm afraid I have no horse to make such a journey with.”

“No worries. My manor house is beyond that hill and through the woods. It is quite hard to spot through the greenery, so I am not surprised you had not noticed it.”

“Yes, I'm afraid I am still getting used to the area...”

“Well, I will leave you to get dressed. Please, come and see me some time.”

With that the man was retreating, his figure like a shadow disappearing into the night air.

 

Will was cold, his shaking hands making the relatively easy task of lighting kindling a massive chore. The moon was his only light, the milky glow basking the entire cabin in an eerie silence. The wind screeched against the rafters. The sudden noise startled him and he dropped his lit match to the kindling with more force than intended. It pittered and began to flame begrudgingly. It was small but it would make a difference were he to ever dry off.

He made the short distance to his bed. It was small and made of woven straw. Something he had endeavored to create before his pilgrimage. It was just a few simple mats sewn into old cotton curtains. Comfortable but not necessarily a luxury. He had made a small bed frame from flame blackened poplar, just to keep him from the dirt floor and the inquiring wild life that might scavenge there.

He had wanted to return to nature, not wake to a rat making a nest in his mattress.

His eyes closed, the fire warming him as he fell into a deep sleep.

 

That night he dreamed of too dark eyes. A voice deep and cutting like knives. A face that seemed to be carved from ebony cracking in a million different places. He woke, too warm and his breath labored. Day light spilled through the windows and onto his half covered torso. It was time to gather wood for his fire, time to forage and catch what he could before the sun sets again.

 

He meant to stick to the river but he instead found himself drifting to the woods in front of the cabin. He ventured slowly, seeking a few sturdy sticks to collect. Once he had found something to his liking he used twine from his breeches to make a rough rabbit trap. He had seen a few of them by the river, but he knew they had to be here. Hiding in the muck.

 

Trap set and with nothing but time left he began the task of foraging. There were plenty of blackberry bushes in the forest and he took to nipping off a few barely ripened fruits. They were bitter but slightly sweet and did nothing to abate his growing hunger. He took a sliver of dried trout and ate it slowly as he crept further into the brush- following the rough path. He had never ventured this far, his usual routine being to fish, gather wood and tend a meager vegetable patch that he had sown with a broken handled hoe a few weeks back. Until he could survive on his own he had been living off of the stores of dried beans and fruits he had procured the last time he had been to a general store. That had been months ago.

 

He may have been a terrible gardener but he was a prolific fisherman.

 

“You do realize it is a crime to poach on another individual's property? Even in these free states.” Asked a familiar voice from behind him.

Will visibly jumped, he scrambled back until he hit his shoulders hard against a blooming dogwood. A few blossoms fell before his eyes. The man in front of him looked entirely too pleased with himself. It was the man from the night before. He was wearing a perfectly tailored black suit with dark green piping. He wore a cape loose over his shoulders clasped with a silver pin in the shape of an oak leaf.

“My apologies, I did not even realize that this was part of a property. There were no markers on the surveyors map...”

“It is a rather recent purchase so I believe you.”

“I apologize for our previous encounter, it was not ideal. I was in a state.”

“That you were. Allow me to make a formal introduction. Would you take coffee at my manor house and join me for a small luncheon?” The stranger asked, his voice like a metronome.

Will looked away, he wanted to refuse but the promise of food other than mealy beans and bony fish had his stomach loudly agreeing.

“I would be honored to be your guest.” Will spoke softly his voice filled with the seeping blush of embarrassment.

“Perfect. Follow me, please.” The man walked through roots and crags with the grace of a dancer on the finest marble ballroom floor.

Will struggled to maintain his pace, his eyes trained on his feet should he stumble and fall. Snakes moved past him along with the occasional possum trying to flee that which sees all. Man's peripheral advantage apparent.

Through the dark streak of leaves and branches a man made structure peaked through. It was a massive thing, made of ash colored wood with black stonework. It was like a mausoleum with vaulted sides and broad outcroppings that came out in linear spires. Somehow it seemed impossible that he had never seen such a grand macabre landmark. Will found himself in awe of its greatness, yet inwardly he was disgusted by the amount of artifice to it. How much of nature had been destroyed to create such a structure? How little does it work with the environment it is in? The other man looked to him with a smile that seemed to read his mind.

“I can not say I am a naturalist, William. I much prefer the grandiose of the baroque and the philosophical enlightenment of the neoclassicists. That is no reason to assume I will not be sympathetic to your own views. You will find my library is well stocked in the poetry and essays of many ideologies that are mine and also not my own. A scholar must be well polished in all areas to truly define his own.” He spoke, his eyes watching Will like he were a specimen behind glass.

“I am afraid that this goes against my ideals, to enter into such a architectural... Curiosity.” Will said, his movements stopped.

“I won't tell anyone.”

Will contemplated the implications. He stepped forward making his way past the other man.

 

The interior of the manor was even more exceptional than the outside. Marble of green and white weaved through the halls like veins pulsing to the heart of the house. Will was lead to a room with high vaulted ceilings, mauve rugs and a long walnut table. At the center of the table was what men of wealth would call a modest dinner- to Will it was a banquet set for a King.

He did his best not to act nearly as starving as he was. The other man looked at him with soft mirth to his efforts.

 

“I never got your name. Earlier, when I gave you mine.” Will said his voice soft and low.

“Oh yes. How rude of me. My name is Hannibal Lecter. I am a doctor and surgeon.”

“There is a clear distinction between the two?”

“Perhaps less now, but in the past the difference was vast. A surgeon was more of a butcher, a man with a knife who could carve a human because he could carve a cow. The main skills being a steady hand and a strong stomach for blood. Now we must have an acute knowledge of illness. We must understand the cause before we remedy it.” A fire of idealism was lit in Hannibal's brown eyes. It left Will staring.

“That is an admirable profession, but pray, what are you doing in the wilderness of Virginia if you are a man of medicine? Surely there are more people with ailments- who need healing in the cities.” Will asked.

“Unfortunately with the role of surgeon, no matter how well taught you are- no matter how versed you may be in the lyrical falter of human biology- one finds himself with the cold reality of working with the sick. That one is also working in the palm of Death's hand. I killed a patient of mine. Something that I knew was inevitable, something that had happened many times before. But when you see the worst moment in every person's life- their end- eventually you see your own.”

“Trauma is a cyclical process, do you intend to return to the area of medicine?”

“No, not entirely. I apologize for my brashness, but I must inquire... Why are you out here, William?”

“Something similar, but different. I was a detective, in Baltimore. It's curious how new all of our systems of catching criminals have changed. We catalog everything now, take photographs of anything that we can. We quantify people into numbers, letters. I shot a man- a man who otherwise would have killed me... And my superiors wanted me to quantify it as a necessary evil, something that on paper made me a hero. In reality I was scared, reacting to my own mortality. I can not help returning to that moment- I can see from his eyes his intention- I can feel him die.”

“That is empathy. When we can feel what other's feel just through deduction. It's a beautiful thing.”

“It's a haunting thing, Dr. Lecter.”

“Are you haunted?”

“Like a graveyard forgotten, where Death still lingers to make footfalls through fallen stones that have lost their markers long ago.”

 

 


	2. Legacy of Ebbing Veins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This will be going somewhere eventually, I promise.

Will hardly remembers the walk back to his cabin, he barely registers it when he falls asleep by a barely embered fire. He feels sick- full but also tainted. He falls asleep in the barely dark cabin, a burning fever making him sweat through the cotton of his mattress. In his sleep he can see the ebony face with a thousand cracks. This time it is closer, looking into him and past him. It is not a person, but is also not a mask.

He wakes to the sounds of wood cluttering outside. Through the small rays of sunlight that break the purple murk of sunrise he sees two dogs rooting through his wood stores. He had dried meat there before and he can see them huffing at the ground, looking for the source of the smell. He is careful in catching their attention- not to startle and possibly enrage them. Instead he softly catches their attentions with a few pieces of rabbit. They eat them with a voracious hunger- looking to him for more.

 

He takes to calling the black and white spotted dog Fuller and the warm ginger dog Winston. They follow him everywhere. From the shores of the river they watch him catch fish. In the night they sleep at the base of his bed. When he collects wood they follow in front and behind. Weeks go by and Will finds himself sleeping better, less lost. He resists the thoughts of Hannibal, where they are nary to go. How being in the wilderness leaves him lonely in more ways than he cares to think. Things seem to be going better for him.

 

That is until he wakes one night to his cabin ablaze and the dogs are tugging at his legs to drag him out.

From outside he watches his only protection become a heap of ash.

He crumbles to the ground his head in hands. For hours he stays like this- not knowing what to do. Behind him he hears the cracking of tree limbs.

“I saw the smoke. I had prepared for the worst.” Hannibal spoke, his voice worried.

“I was not prepared. That's why this happened.” Will mumbled. He stared into the flames, miserable.

“Please, stay with me. It would be wrong for me to leave you like this.”

“I can't.”

“I won't tell anyone.”

“I don't mean in that way... It would be taking advantage.”

“Perhaps I do not mind you taking advantage.”

“You don't even know me.”

“I suppose we will have lots of time to get to know each other in the future. Please, follow me and let's get out of this smoke.”

 

Will acquiesces reluctantly. His legs moving on their own, following Hannibal closer than what he intends. He can hear the dogs pattering behind him. Following with great caution.

 

He does not enjoy being left to the kindness of others.

Being poor and on the streets of Louisiana had taught him that kindness was a front for expectation. That his flesh and bones were just another bargaining chip when money was out of the question. That any man promising him education, food or shelter was going to be wanting something in return. It left him aware of Hannibal's attentions. The flirtation in his words. He was not naive, not blind to the sexually charged nature of other men. Or to their inclination to other men. After all, he was also not blind to that inclination.

 

He had loved a woman, he had lusted for other men. It was the nature of being. There was no sin to be had or so he thought, if love were not in vain.

 

Frivolity is what frustrated him, the quantifying of sex.

 

 

The room that Lecter had given him was larger than any house, any apartment he had ever lived in. The ceiling was gold colored with an engraved rose motif. The furniture was made of bold, rich coffee brown wood with matching golden adornments. The bed was high up, with a feather mattress and soft silken sheets. He felt like a pauper during Saturnalia, meant to be King for a day before he returned to the gutter to die an early death.

 

“I hope it does not disappoint.”

“Please excuse me if this sounds rude, but I believe you know this is more and better than anything I have ever experienced.”

“I am entirely aware, I was trying not to be presumptuous.”

“There is no way I could thank you-”

“You could have coffee with me later. I have many things to show you in my study.” It sounded like a promise, an invitation for something entirely debauched. Will could do little to stop the blush rising in his face.

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“Please. Call me Hannibal.”

 

Will spends the next hour bathing himself in the claw foot bath tub he finds in the room attached to his. He had never had a ceramic tub in his life- he had grown up using rivers and small metal tubs that would also be used for cleaning laundry. They were not places of comfort, just tools for keeping adequate hygiene. It isn't until after he has dried off and groomed his hair and face does he hear a small knock at his door. The woman at the door is middle aged, mild mannered with a monotone voice that announces dinner is in an hour. She leaves with barely a glance up.

Will finds shirts and breeches that are close to his size in the imposing drawers across from the bed. By the time he is done dressing up he looks nothing like he had that morning. No soft smudges of dirt on his arms, no black rings of grit under his nails. He looks clean, well refined. His handsome face and large, expressive blue eyes suited to the smartness of his dress.

When he makes it to the dining hall Hannibal is absolutely glowing at his transformation.

“Ah, you look well. I am glad that we are a close fit.” Hannibal says with a chipper tone.

“I can not fault your good taste, sir. If only I were slightly taller then I could do the garment complete justice.” Will speaks, his eyes down and a blush creeping up his cheeks.

“I think it will do just fine.” Hannibal gently grabs Will's knee giving him a reassuring tap.

The touch is fleeting- insignificant- but it makes him burn with heat. He holds back a shudder.

They dine on liver in red wine sauce with delicately sliced onions and wild mushrooms. Will can not place the meat, but eats it nonetheless. Beef or perhaps pork? He was never one to tell these kinds of things.

There was little time to develop a palette for the gourmet in the worst parts of Baltimore. Just surviving in a city growing beyond its means, beyond the space it can contain was hard enough.

“This is delicious.” Will hums, his face rouged with wine.

“I prepared it myself, thank you.”

“You don't have a cook?”

“I do employ a cook. But, there is a certain joy I take in cooking for myself and others. A pride of creating beauty from the basest of things. When you make something and watch others enjoy it, there is nothing more rewarding.”

Will smiles briefly, his discomfort obvious. He had never been a social person, often retreating to his rooms instead of taking his fellow officers up on their invites to drink and revel.

“I can say without a doubt, I am thoroughly enjoying this.” Will says, his eyes looking away.

“Then you should also enjoy dessert. Please, follow me into the Study.”

 

Dessert was a slice of Sacher torte, the dense chocolate cake layered between sharp apricot jelly and covered in a thin layer of rich ganache had Will groaning audibly.

It was the most delicious thing he had ever eaten.

Hannibal smiled into his coffee, but maintained an air of stoicism.

 

“I am glad to have you here Will, this location is peaceful, if not lonely. What will you do now that your cabin has burned?” Hannibal inquired.

“My previous superior in Baltimore, Captain Crawford, will probably want me back. I didn't necessarily leave without some unwillingness on his part. It was a situation.”

“Is that what you want to do?”

“It is what I will have to do. I appreciate your kindness, I truly do. Unfortunately I do not have the means or manpower to rebuild. I must return to the workforce.”

“At least stay here until you get an affirmation from Crawford, that way I can arrange adequate transport. The roads leading up to the city can be quite dangerous. Unpredictable.”

“Yes, of course.” Will bites his lip out of nervousness. Hannibal watches the motion with obvious intent.

 

That night Will dreams of Hannibal, over him and holding him down. He tastes rich wine when they kiss. His eyes slide shut as they explore each other with hands unbound. When he opens them back up to take in the sight of his lover he sees only black ebony looking back at him. With a million cracks running down it.

 

 

 

 


	3. Languid As With Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!

He feels the cold water rushing around him. It wraps itself around his legs and twines itself up his chest as it rises in bruising urgency. Distantly he realizes if he does not move he will drown. He tilts his head up to the night sky, eyes sliding open to the glowing incandescent of the moon, its radiance shattering on waves like broken porcelain. From the shore there is a figure watching him.

“WILL!” Hannibal's voice breaks through the sounds of the river, jostling Will from his half slumber.

Winston and Fuller are halfway to him by the time he realizes his situation.

They pull him to shore, fighting the current.

“I thought- I thought it was a dream...” Will whispers, blue brilliant eyes wide, lost and afraid.

“We really must get you out of the cold. I didn't even realize you had left the manor until I heard the dogs barking by the river.”

“Thank you. For coming after me.”

“I'm afraid that I couldn't be of more help. You were lucky they were here.” A gloved hand rubs Winston's head. He whines softly, looking to Will for guidance.

 

Will had sleep walked before, as a child. He had drifted in Orpheus's grasp among the dewy fields near the train station where his father had built their ramshackle house. Through grass and weeds his feet led him to the edges of lakes, his body making the motions of lacing a hook, tying a lure and casting the line. Never had he dredged himself so deep in the water that his heart had almost ceased at the cold crushing him like a vise. He had always stopped at shores, like he were playing out activities through the day.

His father had always joked he was practicing for the next day, that he was just making sure he had remembered all the steps. Mimicking the fastidious repetition his father had expressed to him when they had met at the lake for his first lesson. How he had mirrored his father movements at each step until he had his line cast in perfect symmetry. There was a beauty in it.

Even now as he undressed from cold wet clothes in Hannibal's study while the other man coaxed a small fire into a bursting flame rolling waves of heat to his chilled bones- Will saw the beauty in the terrifying chance of this new pattern. His heart beat with an urgent rhythm. Panic was ripping through him like an electric current- threatening to burn and fizzle.

Hannibal placed a warm hand on his unclothed shoulder. Will met his eyes with intensity coiled in the blue of his wide eyes. It had been nothing to lean in and take Hannibal's lips in a frantic kiss, his body nude and vulnerable reaching out for mooring. He had expected rejection, to be pushed away- but instead hands reached up, cradling his head. Forcing him to focus on the other man.

“Is this what you want, Will? Or are you channeling something out of fear?” Hannibal asks, his eyes searching.

“I wouldn't do it if I didn't want to.” Is Will's only answer before he is crashing down again into lips that open for him, that meet his motions until he is no longer the one in control. That does not keep him from moaning for more, trying to wrestle- or at least pretend to- for dominance. Hannibal is a force, though, that he had not prepared for. Will finds himself on the floor, with Hannibal above him, divesting him of his last articles of clothing. His prone form is vibrating with nervous sexual energy as he clutches, touches what he can- or what he is allowed.

There is barely a consideration of touch to his cock before he is being hauled up and reversed, his face down in the luxurious wine red carpet. He expects the dry pain of a finger unlubricated but instead he feels the hot heat of breath, lingering over his ass.

He gasps- high and keening at the first motions over his hole. The first few questing licks gauging his sensitivity and then he feels Hannibal go at it with more force, more direction. There is a harsh grip to his hips, placing him right where he is wanted. It has him grinding against the floor, seeking some kind of friction. Hannibal chuckles at this, his face away from him and his tongue replaced by beautiful, long fingers that work him open.

“You are shameless, my dear. Rubbing yourself against my finery, trying to selfishly seek release against my tongue, my fingers. Can you feel it, when I rub against your most achingly intimate place? I can feel you, how warm you are here-” he punctuates his statement with a well angled push, hitting a part of Will that has him bucking back against him, seeking more.

“I wish you could see how utterly ruined you look, pleasure coursing through every tremoring push. I want to carve this image into my memories, of you debauched and fallen. Would you let me, allow me- to take my own pleasure from you?” Hannibal whispers as he grabs Will's neck, pulling him back and holding him there, straining his body to maintain supplication.

“Please!” Will says, his voice desperate.

“What, my incorrigible dear?” Is the only response.

“Please touch me!” It is a entreatment that comes out as a demand.

“Oh, but I am touching you.” Hannibal adds another finger, pressing inside.

“On my cock- oh god please!” Will is gasping desperately, air not reaching his lungs fast enough.

“Only because you ask so sweetly. I can not resist good manners.”

Hannibal is reaching down, releasing Will's neck so he falls with little grace to the floor, his support gone. His hand makes a loose ring around his cock that has Will fucking into it. He moans at the stimulation that is just enough to have him thrusting in frustration. Hannibal chuckles, meeting his abused neck with soft kisses. He tightens the grip, rolling from head to base with delicious friction. It barely takes two strokes before Will is jerking down, his legs shaking against the onslaught of his orgasm. He comes against the rug and over Hannibal's hand.

 

He falls asleep like this, covered in his own release wedged between the fireplace and Hannibal's form.

As he drifts off he thinks about rivers cold and flowing, about submerging. He feels he is drowning every time he looks into red brown eyes, that seem to see through and past him.

 

He imagines he will feel embarrassed for his sexual impulse tomorrow. For now he just gives in to the crushing dark behind his lids and sleeps deeply.

 


	4. Humani Corporis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little background to the story.

Baltimore was a new city, but it had all the trappings of a capitol. There were factories that leaked out gray smog into the morning air. By the shore were fisheries and warehouses that opened up to docks where longshoremen napped in the afternoon sun waiting for ships who were always late to make port. The tedium of waves shook buoys that marked the hours slipping by. The farther one walked down the boardwalk the closer they made it to the busiest parts of the city, where there were shops and carts that assaulted on every side. Men and women advertised anything and everything the heart could desire. A few streets away were small houses and apartments where women and men lingered in the dark of the night. It was past these displays of red lanterns and half lit oil lamps, behind their blackened glass, you would find an open outlet where the Baltimore Police Department had set up headquarters.

Jack Crawford had never been a BPD officer. He was stationed in Baltimore to head the Federal takeover during the troubles of 1861. Although they had turned the Department back to the State he had been asked to remain as a way to avoid Confederate leadership even long after the war had ended and the City had been reclaimed. He would always be a Federal agent, no matter his current office. He could not find himself getting used to the toiling boredom of the simple scurries and hustles of the city. Instead, he found himself in the deepest crawling underbelly, seeking cases that would otherwise be found as material for Freddie Lounds's scurrilous pulp, a newspaper only in name. He had lost his best man to Freddie's particular brand of shameless waste. Will Graham had been his ace in the hole.

He was a man who could read a crime scene like a poem, each line trickling through soft breaths and being unraveled under keen eyes. There had been an unprecedented amount of arrests in relation to their partnership, five multiple murderers caught that year alone.

Now that Will had left, his name tarnished by a particularly gruesome case- Jack found himself lamenting the future of a city that resented his success.

He took a long drag off a cigar, the tarred brown paper smoldering into green smoke. It dissipated into the humid summer air, a miasma of churning discomfort. He had pushed Will too far. He knew it. Now the entire city realized a twisted version of it. It had been a new murder, one like he had seen during the early years of the war. Where a body had been twisted to replicate visceral artistry. There were photographers, men propped against heavy contraptions that had been carried miles through the crowded industry of the city. Their operators sopping wet with sweat and effort. The shouts of printers could be heard as police with bully clubs backed them up into a tight line.

Will had been there, his eyes closed and body taut.

His lips moved with small motions, tracing words with no sound.

Will saw himself, and a man standing away from him. He could smell the sweet salt of his cigarette, the damp clinging wet of mid July staining his loose collared shirt. Will was stalking closer, keeping his eye on the other man's neck. From behind he stuck long wire around his neck and pressed upwards until the struggling tension of the man fighting for his life dissipated into a weak motion.

He was not dead, but close to it. Will saw as he meticulously incised the man into delicate parts, tied by wire. The body was positioned upward, the wire holding him so that he could stand freely. The wire on his neck was replaced with a corded rope in the shape of a noose. Across the body were cuts delicately done to display each layer of flesh, fat, and bone. The face had been sewn to display a stoic countenance, yet no thread could be seen.

“Is it him,Will?” Jack had asked, his eyes tight with desperation.

“Yes, it's the ripper.” Was the response, Will fixed him with a stare of his own.

“And he's not finished, Jack. This is like a line, a note, one in a series. He will not stop until he finishes his work. He's dedicated like that.”

“Does that mean he's a tradesmen, or an artisan?”

“I find it doubtful. There's a certain sophistication, he has resources and an education unparalleled. Yet he also knows the city, where to go and how not to get noticed.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes. I think we are looking for a doctor, if not a mortician. Something about the cuts are too precise, too sure to just be a butcher or madman. This is a man who knows what he is doing and knows he can do it well.”

“I will get some of our men to make the rounds to all known doctors and surgeons. Check out the funeral parlors, too. Any idea why he didn't use the rope to initially choke him?”

“He needed the rope to look pristine, like there wasn't a struggle. It was more for show than practice. Do we have the identity of the victim yet?”

“Atticus McCleary, a longshoreman who had recently been arrested for lewd speech, released after his mother paid his fine a few days ago. He was last seen leaving a local tavern. He was inebriated, as one might expect.”

There was a pause. Will had seen the image before.

“It's Andreas Vesalius's _Fabrica_. McCleary was a criminal, or so the killer saw him as one. He is mocking him, cutting him up like a pig for the entire city to see. To give him a purpose to society since he has none living.”

“So our killer is doing it for the good of the people?”

“No, this is only for his entertainment and... His consumption. I think the coroner is going to find something missing. I think he may be keeping something.”

“What for?”

“I'm not sure. A reminder, perhaps.”

 

Three days and one autopsy later they had found an empty space where McCleary's heart should have been. The killer had removed it by going through a small incision under the ribs.

 

In quick succession two more bodies were found, hung and posed with metal wire deconstructed by a sure hand to show their inner workings. They had interviewed every doctor in the city and beyond but could not find anything definite.

 

Will Graham was falling apart, each murder bringing him closer to the edge.

It wasn't until his hands trembling with a spent pistol in hand and blood on his pant leg did he finally fall.

They were investigating a new murder, one of a young girl found stabbed in a derelict apartment. It should have been straightforward, to interview neighbors and photograph the crime.

Instead Will found himself face to face with a man wild with terrible rage, charging at him. It was barely a thought when the first shots rang out. It was only by the sixth and seventh did he become aware that the man was dead on the floor.

 

Freddie Lounds had always written about Will as a suspect. A new character in a play, a comedy of errors.

After he shot the girl's father and killer he was the only suspect.

How many bullets does it take to kill a man, was the question Freddie asked on every page. One, maybe two? Certainly seven was just a vicious act by a man deranged.

Deranged enough to be the ripper?

The evidence was all there. Or so the papers professed.

 

“I'm done Jack. I am leaving for Virginia in the morning.” Will had said, his tired form leaning against the door to Jack's office.

“What about the Ripper? What about helping the people of Baltimore?” Jack asked.

“I know you never gave a shit about this city, Jack. He's outsmarted us. Gotten inside my head. Freddie isn't completely wrong. I see every motion, every tick when I close my eyes. Vicious delights of blood and sinew. I need to get out of this corrupting place.”

 

With Will gone Freddie had nothing else to write about.

Other than the grand incompetence of the Baltimore Police Department.

Jack sighed, the tedium of a Baltimore morning ending with a knock to his door.

 

 

 


End file.
